On Amoralist Anarchism

re: On Amoralist Anarchism

Hutchinson Persons — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:05:16 GMT

>it is impossible to know the motives of an other person.

>That person may respect my liberty for either normative or positive reasons and I have no way of knowing.

The word I find most interesting here is "know / knowing"

Maybe before you can take any of these discussions further, you need to agree on a standard of "knowledge". How do you "know" something? What constitutes proof? If you could state fundamentally, that is, boiled down, how you define proof, how you know something, maybe we can bat it around a little until we agree on a standard.

Here is an interesting example:

>On the other hand, there's no way to prove that A has 'natural authority' over B...

Allow me to suggest that within the CONTEXT of this website, the administrator has 'natural authority over B, and anyone else posting here. If they don't like what you have to say, they have the authority to delete it.

Does this example constitute proof of something? If so can a more general, all encompassing statement be derived from it?

re: On Amoralist Anarchism

Brainpolice — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:43:49 GMT

Any intrinsic concept of authority is definitely logically ruled out.

re: On Amoralist Anarchism

Juan — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:00:52 GMT

"Essentially, I am saying that libertarianism/anarchism is precisely a subjective choice. "

Yes, in the sense that people can choose to be libertarians or not. On the other hand, there's no way to prove that A has 'natural authority' over B, so libertarianism is the only objectively correct moral theory. And, btw, amoralism IS a (flawed) moral theory...

re: On Amoralist Anarchism

Brainpolice — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:45:21 GMT

So, in effect, this entire project of libertarian anarchism is just pointless semantics.

re: On Amoralist Anarchism

Charles Anthony — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:19:51 GMT

Essentially, I am saying that libertarianism/anarchism is precisely a subjective choice. I may have a personal reason but there does not exist a universally objective reason. There certainly is no physical property of nature that prevents people from violating freedom.

Likewise, when a person chooses not to aggress upon myself, I can never be certain what his reason is either. That person may respect my liberty for either normative or positive reasons and I have no way of knowing.

re: On Amoralist Anarchism

Brainpolice — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 08:56:38 GMT

I don't understand a claim such as "The choice to be a libertarian/anarchist comes down to nothing more than "I do not like initiating aggression."

Surely you have to explain WHY. You have to have a REASON. If you want to convince others of such a goal, you need rational arguments. If you don't want to convince others, then it's pretty futile to have such a position to begin with. It makes no sense to say you have a goal and provide no reason for that goal, and then go on to act as if your goal is irrelevant anyways. That makes the whole thing pointles.

re: On Amoralist Anarchism

Charles Anthony — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:41:34 GMT

I can identify precisely with what you are attacking and I disagree with you completely.

The choice to be a libertarian/anarchist comes down to nothing more than "I do not like initiating aggression."

I would like to comment on one of your final statements: "I think there's a sense in which this ethical nihilism is harmless, since the ethical nihilist may practically take a libertarian type of position anyways and most people aren't going to practically take ethical nihilism seriously."

My comment is this: it is impossible to know the motives of an other person. The only thing you can conceivably verify are actions. Thus, WHY a person refrains from initiating violence is anybody's guess.